Scripps: 5% Chance of ‘Catastrophic’ Global Warming by Century’s EndA new study by Scripps Institution of Oceanography finds a 5 percent chance that rapid global warming will be “catastrophic” or worse for the human race. The study led by Veerabhadran “Ram” Ramanathan, a distinguished professor of climate and atmospheric sciences and adviser to Pope Francis, found that an average global temperature increase greater than 3 degrees centigrade could result in “catastrophic” — and over 5 degrees “existential” — threat to humanity. These categories describe two low-probability but statistically significant scenarios that could play out by the century’s end according to an analysis of different models of global warming by Ramanathan and Yangyang Xu of Texas A&M University. “When we say 5 percent-probability high-impact event, people may dismiss it as small but it is equivalent to a one-in-20 chance the plane you are about to board will crash,” said Ramanathan. “We would never get on that plane with a one-in-20 chance of it coming down but we are willing to send our children and grandchildren on that plane.”